Évaluation publiée le 21 mars 2021
The vaporwave aesthetic is one that has been attempted in a few games, but nowhere has it been more successfully implemented than in Broken Reality. The dedication to creating the world within the game is admirable, and it's clear that this product had at least a fair amount of passion placed into it, which makes it such a shame that the product turned out to be kind of a chore to play, and the overall experience would have benefited a fair bit more if just a bit of that passion was instead invested into making meaningful game design choices, in regards to which the game sadly falters to a heavy degree.
Broken Reality is a sort of explorative collect-a-thon, to put it in as few words as I can. You move from environment to environment, completing certain objectives that are mostly done through exploration and minor interactions, and when possible, you move onto the next area, and repeat. Primarily, you do actions that collect "likes", which are the primarily collectable in the game, and are required to access further areas. Content wise, there's at least a good 6-7 hours here, and a fair few unique and interesting locations to see.
Entering the world of Broken Reality is a dream. Of course, you'd hope it'd be, considering that's the main draw the game seems to offer. Visually, the game is a feast, at least for most of the time. If you like the vaporwave aesthetic, and want to experience existing within that space, I can think of few better alternatives than what has been created here. The graphics and overall visual style is very polished, and captures what it's going for reasonably well in most situations, though at some points, things can feel a bit too messy, in particular, when searching for certain semi-hidden objects and items, which shouldn't be nearly as difficult as it is at times. Not every environment is a winner, with the final parts of the game being decidedly less colorful and fun. The decision was intentional, and pulled off well enough, but isn't as enjoyable as what came before.
Audio-wise, the music and effects aren't anything all too special, but are absolutely fine for the feelings they are trying to invoke. Everything fits well enough, and doesn't get grating.
Environments themselves are, as a whole, excellent, and going through them and seeing the colorful and friendly faces is fun, but this takes a serious nose-dive at times, particularly in Geocity, which can be a frustrating mess to navigate through at some points, with a lot of branching paths that all look identical, a messy environment that hides important items of interaction, and a lack of clarity in direction.
When it comes to moment to moment gameplay, you have a set of tools that you unlock reasonably quickly throughout the first third of the game. These tools include a liker, a sword, a credit card, a cursor, a camera, and a stopwatch. Each of these tools have their own specific uses, and all of which get a fair bit of attention. However, this is where the game really falters.
Firstly, navigating through these tools, and even using them, can be quite irritating, which absolutely sucks, considering that you're doing this for most of the game. The game asks you to switch through tools using Q and E, though as any experienced FPS player would do, switching through the tools with the 1-6 keys would seem like a clearly better choice, but the game doesn't let you do this half the time, and for no good reason (this extends beyond tool use and into menus, which I'll expand upon later). Eventually, if you keep pressing a key, the tool will be selected, but by no means is it a guarantee. I am unsure as to why this is, but it is certainly annoying. In addition, your tools aren't too responsive, as in, it takes more time than you'd like to switch between them, and actually use them. None of them are all to fun to use either, though a large part of this is because of the game's design choices regarding how the world expects you to use these tools. Sadly, it's a huge case of wasted potential, and even worse, wasted time.
Imagine this. In the game, there are hundreds of advertisements/ATMs, which you are expected to use your liker+credit card tool on to get a like (as a collectable). How many times would you imagine you'd have to click on the ad? Once? Try anywhere between 3-10 times, one like for each time. Same applies to shops. And when I say 10 clicks, I don't really mean 10 clicks. I mean 10 slow, spaced out clicks, because the game forces you to wait about 0.25 seconds before you can click again. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but this adds up, quickly.
The camera tool is especially annoying. You are expected to take pictures near everywhere you go to get more likes, but you can only see which areas will give you likes by having the camera out, so, naturally, anyone actually trying to get likes will have their camera out near 24/7, and every single time you take a picture, you NEED to do a small zoom in. You can't just click, you have to do this extra, time-consuming step. The stopwatch is a teleporter, where left clicking saves your place AND also teleports you to a saved location (which is already annoying), whilst right clicking deletes the saved location. Once you teleport back to a location, you need to save it AGAIN, because it doesn't stick. This is more annoying than you'd think it would be, and causes annoying screw ups if you're not being especially mindful.
The sword, much like the liker and credit card, is also wasted. You use it to cut up viruses, which are represented via an error message. These don't do damage or attack you in any way, but do impede your progress. Usually, there are several of them placed in a single spot that you need to get through, meaning that, like with the liker and credit card, you are expected to stand there and press mouse 1, over and over and over again. There's no skill involved here, it's literally just a time waste, much like the vast majority of the interactions. The cursor acts as a hook-shot, but there are very clear objects of interaction where it is possible to use it, and this isn't a free-form thing at all, which, in the end, makes it pretty boring, as you're just going through the motions using it in the way the game wants, not how you want to.
Compounding all this is another issue. The walk speed is just too damn slow, and sprinting/jumping isn't an option. Backtracking isn't uncommon in this game, and being able to move around faster would be nice, but the best you're going to get is strafe running whilst holding 2 keys and looking diagonally, which helps, but sucks that it's the best available option.
The game is also janky. Half the time, menu options refuse to work, particularly when trying to quit the game, and sometimes, menu options will stick on the screen after leaving a menu. It's a bit ♥♥♥♥, really. I think it's also worth mentioning that softlocks are also a real possibility according to many other reviews, though I was lucky in that I avoided these.
I know I'm being quite critical, but that's because this game could have been so much better if it had just focused more on the exploration, and had possibly switched up the gameplay to something a bit more free-form. However, as it is, though the environments are a pleasure to exist in for the most part, the act of progressing through them can feel like more of a chore than a joy.
I have to shorten this review, since I've reached the word limit, but I'm still going to recommend this title, as I don't regret my time spent with it, and, again, the clear passion put into it and unique qualities go a long way in making the moment-to-moment gameplay more tolerable, and there are quality moments of enjoyment to be had, but I have to strongly suggest waiting for a heavy discount, as I did, otherwise, you may end up regretting it.
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